A Super Bowl bet gone awry

Normally, a good financial rule — especially relevant in the week leading up to the Super Bowl — is to never, ever bet against Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Unfortunately for me and every other Pats fans, the 2018 Super Bowl wasn’t normal.

Which leads us to an even better rule: Stay away from Super Bowl bets.

My losing wager last year turned out to be much more expensive than I had expected — more than 10 times what I expected, in fact, as I delivered the world’s most expensive case of beer to my ex-editor.

My former editor comes from Pennsylvania and I’m from Massachusetts, so we wagered a case of beer on Super Bowl LII last year, with Sam Adams representing New England and Yuengling representing Philadelphia. So far, so good.

After I recovered from the shock of the Patriots’ Tom Brady losing to Eagles’ backup quarterback Nick Foles, I looked into the small matter of handing over a case of Yuengling Lager to my editor. Couldn’t be more than $20, I figured.

I should have read the fine print on the bet.

You would think Yuengling would be readily available in San Antonio.

Yuengling ranked No. 1 for craft beer sales in 2017, according to the Brewers Association, the trade group for craft brewers. Yuengling even ranks No. 6 by volume among beer makers in the United States, a including biggies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors.

You’d expect the biggest craft beer maker in the country to be available in, you know, little, bitty, tiny beer markets like Texas. But you’d be wrong.

You can’t buy Yuengling in Texas for love or money. Arkansas and Louisiana are the only states west of the Mississippi that sell Yuengling. I briefly considered a drive east to Louisiana to fulfill my bet obligation. But, no, epic beer quests like that ended for me after age 22.

Did I know anyone in those states who would visit San Antonio anytime soon? Not really.

Time passed. The bet went unfulfilled. My editor moved from the San Antonio Express-News to New York City last year to work for CNBC. I’m pretty sure she forgot about the bet. But I did not.

Like Tyrion Lannister, a finance columnist always pays his debts. Even if he’s nearly a year late. Earlier this month, before the Eagles’ first playoff game, I realized I had to make good on my bet.

An online search verified that a deli five blocks from her New York apartment sells Yuengling. Problem solved! Anything should be available in New York City for money, right?

I called the deli.

“Do you sell Yuengling Beer?”

“Hold, please,” was the reply in a strong, not quite identifiable accent.

Long pause.

“Hello.” Different, but equally strong and unidentifiable, accent.

“Yes, I’m looking to —”

“Hold on!”

The third person to pick up the phone finally waited let me ask my question. He verified that, yes, they had Yuengling beer for sale in the store.

“Great! Can you deliver a case five blocks away?”

“$50 minimum.”

“OK, fine — for that price, let’s make it two cases. Here is the address.”

But my journey had only just begun. They would not take my credit card over the phone. They would only agree to swipe the card of the person taking delivery. But obviously that wasn’t how I wanted to settle a bet with my ex-editor. I needed to pay with my own card.

So I must have asked five different ways whether they could take my credit card. With billions of dollars in online and telephone commerce happening every day, I’m still puzzled by a New York City deli that can’t charge my card over the phone. I hung up, stumped and mystified.

Anyway, I needed to get creative about this delivery problem. I’ll admit I was stuck for about half a day on how to move a case of beer from a deli in Manhattan to an apartment … also in Manhattan.

I finally remembered I had an American Express card that offered a “concierge” service. I’d never used it. I think it’s mostly for restaurant reservations or ticket purchases, but the website description made me think it could solve my problem.

I called the concierge service. Encouraging news! They hire couriers. The woman on the line warned me it would be expensive. How bad could it be? I thought.

Since I was nearly a year late on delivering a case of beer, I authorized them to charge me up to $100 for both the beer and delivery.

An hour later, they called back with the damage: $137 for the courier service, plus the price of the beer, plus an additional charge of 20 percent of the beer cost. Since I’d already resigned myself to paying for two cases, the cost was now up to $200. Over the phone, unable to solve this another way, I agreed to the courier service at their price.

My phone rang an hour later.

“Uh, Mr. Taylor. This is American Express. The courier is at the deli now, but they only have a single six-pack of Yuengling. They wanted you to know that it’s going to be an additional charge for them to go to another deli for the rest of the order.”

At this point, I might have gotten just a teensy bit, let’s say, “frictional” on the phone.

For an additional $50, they agreed to deliver two cases’ worth by the next day to my former editor’s apartment.

I followed up with them the next day. I’m happy to report that two cases of Yuengling arrived before the opening of the Eagles’ NFL playoff run. For the low, low price of $305.25, charged to my American Express card.

For all that, I’m pretty sure my ex-editor is a white-wine gal. I hope her friends in New York appreciate drinking the world’s most expensive case of beer.

And that is why you should be cautious wagering on the Super Bowl this week.

A beer-business side note: I’ve spoken to enough folks in the craft beer industry to know they won’t be a bit surprised by the economics of settling my bet. The expensive part of beer is never in the making or acquiring of it. All the big money is in the distribution and delivery.

Michael Taylor is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and author of “The Financial Rules For New College Graduates.”

Michael Taylor graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1995. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Mexico in 1996, and worked as a fixed income consultant from 1996 to 1997. He sold bonds for Goldman Sachs in the Emerging Markets and Mortgage Departments from 1997 to 2004. In 2004, he founded Cedarcrest Capital LLC, a purchaser of distressed fixed income assets. Taylor also serves as finance chair and investment chair for the board of trustees of the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West.

He and his family moved to San Antonio in 2009. He has co-taught a personal finance course at Trinity University and writes the finance blog www.Bankers-Anonymous.com.